When your customers are used to being bent over and shafted, then saying thank you afterwards, it is not hard for their CS to get a good rating. In fact the apple EULA probably stated "By pressing accept to use this service, you agree that Apple CS are awesome, even after we shaft you again"

Two stories come to mind.... 1) The news story about how Apple customers act very similar to religious zealots when talking about Apple. and 2) the firestorm that results every time they drop a price by $100 two weeks after release.

You're right Rick, that is nice... I can't compare because I don't remember ever calling Sprint for anything. But more and more companies understand how you feel. Last time I called United for a frequent flyer question and Directv I both times got very normal competent Americans to talk to.

I have to admit, when ever I speak to BT technical support, its some random person in the middle east. Everytime I call HP technical support, same thing, everytime I call Dell, same thing, Call Toshiba, same thing.

Every time I call Apple? Well I always get someone in the UK. I like that alot.

Please note, I only have an iPhone, I actually hate Macs, but I like the iPhone so I'm no fan boy. Hell my laptop is HP, my computer is custom made and my screens are Samsung.

Reason I call these company's is because I work on a helpdesk myself. I've only ever had to call Apple twice in the last 2 years, as HP it seems to be every month, Toshiba twice a year and dell every Six months. Even so it is much friendlyer to speak to someone who speaks the same language.

Sure, talking to a native English person on the helpline is nice, but would you pay a 50-100% premium just for that? I've usually always got what I wanted when talking to support in India, yes it might be a bit frustrating but just make sure you speak slowly and clearly

Also I have never called Apple support since the day I mentioned that I was having problems with my unlocked iphone - they checked the serial number and told me that it was supposed to be locked to O2, then kept quizzing me as to how I managed to unlock it... I said I jailbroke it and then they refused to help

burty117 said:
Every time I call Apple? Well I always get someone in the UK. I like that alot.

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Rest assured that you're paying for that privilege. Which is fine, but it's not as if Apple is providing better customer service for the same cost as other companies. They're spending more to provide better customer service, and they're passing that cost onto their consumers. Nothing shocking here.

If you pay enough money, you can probably get tech support from a professor at MIT or Caltech.

Regardless of how you feel about their devices and consumers, Apple provides the best customer support and customer service of ANY tech company I know of. Steve knew his customers were not extremely tech savvy so it was critical that they could get the absolute best service and support.

For having such good techsupport I wonder what salary they pay the service reps. I used to work for Onstar and I can tell you many service reps could care less if that button worked when you pushed it.

I don't understand why so many of you posted about customer service/technical support. The article discusses consumer satisfaction, not customer service. Consumer satisfaction is related to a variety of factors: "feel good about your purchase" factor, do you find the product attractive, is the quality of construction good, does the device perform well (battery life, doesn't crash, runs fast), does it retain its resale value as well as its competitors (in case you like to sell your older tech), does it get as many compliments from your friends and family, does it have a good screen, does it do what you wanted it to do based on what was promised by the manufacturer, lack of glitches, etc. etc. etc.

In the overall satisfaction rating, consumers find Apple products the most satisfactory. That doesn't mean that Apple is winning solely based on customer service.

I'm not surprised. Apple puts out great quality, easy to use products for the average pc user. I have a mac book pro in my arsenal, stupid pitbull crack the screen, other than that it works perfectly for my kids to use.

Not too fond of the iPhone/iPad/iEtc... but I don't ever hear too many complaints about them ( other then being expensive ).

Rick said:
Say what you will about their customers and devices... but talking to a person who actually speaks native English when you call Apple support makes all the difference.

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+1 Rick, that is an excellent point. Recently I needed some help with regard to an issue on my HP DV6 notebook, so I contacted HP, and ended up talking with some Indian guy (in India) and the rest is history, anyway the long and the short of it, if you hire CS people from native regions the results will definitely be more positive.